


Keepsake

by Nary



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Affection, F/F, Love, Or at least former teenagers, Pre-Canon, Secret Admirer, Secret Crush, Shyness, Teenagers, Tokens of love, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:14:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29122494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nary/pseuds/Nary
Summary: The box didn't look like much: flat, polished bone, with a sliding top, about the size of an outstretched hand and twice as high, tucked away into the corner of her foot locker.  Cohort soldiers didn't typically have room for a lot of personal possessions beyond the basic necessities, so Marta knew that whatever Judith kept in there had to be something important.
Relationships: Judith Deuteros/Marta Dyas
Comments: 6
Kudos: 21
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	Keepsake

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Koraki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Koraki/gifts).



The box didn't look like much: flat, polished bone, with a sliding top, about the size of an outstretched hand and twice as high, tucked away into the corner of her foot locker. Cohort soldiers didn't typically have room for a lot of personal possessions beyond the basic necessities, so Marta knew that whatever Judith kept in there had to be something important. Some small memento from home, perhaps a gift from her parents or some other precious but portable treasure.

Still, she didn't want to pry - when she was newly appointed as Judith's cavalier primary, it felt intrusive, and later, it seemed like if Judith wanted her to know, she would have told her by this point. She never saw her necromancer open it, but it was always there, in among her things, a tiny private walled-off piece of her life. 'One flesh, one end' was good and all, but everyone was entitled to keep a few things private, Marta figured.

They had been together for almost three years when she finally found out, albeit inadvertently. They had just been transferred from the _Emperor's Dominion_ to the _Rigor_ , which meant transferring all of their gear along with them. They were busy unpacking, or rather, Judith was unpacking while Marta was cleaning the rest of the room. Their new quarters were just as cramped as before, but with a few extra amenities, including a storage locker and a small amount of fixed shelving. The mystery box, Marta noticed, got placed on the highest shelf. But it must been precariously balanced, because when Judith shoved her mess kit in next to it, it fell off and hit the floor. The lid flew open and a small, gleaming object bounced and rolled across the metal floor. 

Judith scrambled to retrieve it, but Marta was faster, and anyway it practically fell right at her feet. When she picked it up, she recognized it as a gold button from a Cohort uniform. A Cohort lieutenant's uniform, to be precise. It was exactly like the ones that lined her uniform - there was nothing special about it that she could see. "What the hell?" she said aloud.

When she looked over at Judith, she realized her necromancer was blushing furiously, clutching the empty box in both hands. "What's this?" Marta asked, gentling her tone at the look on her face.

"You don't know?"

"Should I?

Judith mumbled something that sounded like _shores._

"What?" 

"I said, it's yours," Judith said, her voice too loud in the small, metal box that was their room. "It fell off your uniform, and I kept it," she added more quietly.

Marta cast her mind back and managed to dredge up a distant memory. "I lost a button off my uniform and got dinged at inspection once. I had to replace it, and they docked my pay for two weeks. But that has to have been six years ago, easy."

Judith nodded. "You didn't notice, but I saw it fall. You were in the mess, and I was sitting at the next table, and you got up to clear your tray and it caught on the edge of the table and popped off and rolled over to me. I picked it up because I thought... maybe giving it back to you would give me a good excuse to talk to you. But then I never actually worked up the courage to do that. So I just... kept it instead." 

Marta held the button out, flat on her upturned palm. "Do you want it back?" She tried very hard not to smirk, out of respect for the feelings of a shy fourteen-year-old girl with, it appeared, a very huge crush. Even if that girl was now a first lieutenant of twenty years old who had no reason to be shy around her anymore. 

"It belongs to you," Judith said, stepping into the curve of her arm. "Like my heart." 

"Well, you can keep it safe for me," Marta told her, planting a kiss on her forehead. "Like my heart."


End file.
